


two cakes

by asideofourown



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: (both literally and otherwise), Aziraphale Is Trying (Good Omens), Baking, Cake, Crowley is a Mess (Good Omens), Don't copy to another site, Fluff, Good Omens: Lockdown, Idiots in Love, M/M, Post-Canon, Quarantine, very badly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:15:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23955958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asideofourown/pseuds/asideofourown
Summary: Crowley tapped his phone against his thigh and paused in the kitchen doorway.  He glanced at his watch, not that time was particularly important at the moment.  And then he said out loud (which had become something of a habit, spending so much time by himself), “Might as well.”  He smiled a little bitterly, sloping into the kitchen, opening YouTube on his phone and typing in the kind of video he wanted.  Leaning against the counter he scrolled through his options before finally choosing the one he wanted.“Hi, guys!” the Youtuber said, smiling cheerfully at the camera.  “Today we’re going to be baking a simple chocolate layer cake for beginners!”Crowley set up his phone against the wall and miracled himself an apron to cover his clothes before miracling every ingredient he’d need as his new Youtube instructor listed them out.  “Right,” he muttered, staring at the cake supplies in front of him and planting his hands on his hips.  “I’ll show him cake.”  He grinned.  “This should be easy as… whatever.  Cake.”  With that he unpaused his video and started in.[Crowley tries his hand at baking before lockdown gets a little less lonely thanks to a conveniently occult loophole]
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 57
Kudos: 266
Collections: Good Omens Lockdown fics





	two cakes

**Author's Note:**

> hi guys, so after a whole day of trying to be productive and getting horribly distracted by fandom, here's the thousandth fic based on [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quSXoj8Kob0) :D Because of the nature of the inspiration and current world events there is some discussion of quarantine, but I've tried to keep things as vague as possible.
> 
> Title is a reference to Aziraphale's apparently canonical baking, and to the [Two Cakes Rule](https://fanlore.org/wiki/Two_Cakes_Rule)— both of which are applicable here.
> 
> Enjoy, and happy 30th anniversary to Good Omens!

Crowley stared down at the phone in his hand, a frown on his face.Despite the fact that he had the newest model smartphone, a dial tone buzzed lowly from the speakers— probably Aziraphale’s fault, somehow, he tended to have that sort of impact on modern technology.He leaned back in his throne and propped his feet up on his desk, closing his eyes and pressing his phone to his lips.“Fuck,” he mumbled, wincing a bit.

He had thought he was being _quite_ obvious in his hinting— the offer to ‘slither over’ with some alcohol, stay a while (forever, maybe, even), watch Aziraphale eat cake and enjoy his company while they didn’t have much else they could do.But Aziraphale was so _terribly_ worried about the _rules—_

Crowley blew out a breath and got up with a lurch.He didn’t have room to criticize, he supposed as he wandered through his flat, since he didn’t much want to go out either.He shuffled into his plant room and glared halfheartedly at his ferns, but was far too bored to put enough energy into yelling at them.

Crowley tapped his phone against his thigh and paused in the kitchen doorway.He glanced at his watch, not that time was particularly important at the moment.And then he said out loud (which had become something of a habit, spending so much time by himself), “Might as well.”He smiled a little bitterly, sloping into the kitchen, opening YouTube on his phone and typing in the kind of video he wanted.Leaning against the counter he scrolled through his options before finally choosing the one he wanted.

“Hi, guys!” the Youtuber said, smiling cheerfully at the camera.“Today we’re going to be baking a simple chocolate layer cake for beginners!”

Crowley set up his phone against the wall and miracled himself an apron to cover his clothes before miracling every ingredient he’d need as his new Youtube instructor listed them out.“Right,” he muttered, staring at the cake supplies in front of him and planting his hands on his hips.“I’ll show _him_ cake.”He grinned.“This should be easy as… whatever.Cake.”With that he unpaused his video and started in.

Only, it turned out that baking was not as easy as professional Youtubers made it look— unless there was some editing trick that made their batter look smoother and more free of eggshells than Crowley’s was.

“Blast it,” Crowley muttered the third time his glasses slipped off his nose and landed in the bowl.“Buggering hell, bollocks, fucking _shit—“_ He reached out to rewind his video again, for the seventh time, to try to figure out what in the world this apparently five-star, world-class baker was doing that he couldn’t, but the screen changed from YouTube to an incoming phone call.Crowley set his jaw, staring at the screen for a moment, and then managed to answer the phone without smearing chocolate cake batter all over everything.

“What?” he said, trying to keep the irritation out of his voice.He was annoyed with his cake batter, but there was no reason to lash out.Well, besides the fact that he was a demon.So maybe he should—

“I’ve been thinking, my dear,” Aziraphale replied cautiously.

“Huh,” Crowley said a bit distractedly.“Gotta happen some time, I suppose.”

Aziraphale huffed with faux indignation and then said, “I’ve been _thinking,_ perhaps I was a bit hasty in dismissing you earlier.”He paused, his indecision clear even over the phone.

Crowley scraped at his cake batter, and thought about looking through his cupboards to see if he had a suitable pan.

“Aren’t you meant to be sleeping?” Aziraphale said hesitantly.“You said you were going to nap until July.”

Crowley grimaced.“Said I would if I couldn’t think of anything to do,” he mumbled, opening the cupboard in front of his face.The only thing in there was a colander.“And now I’m in the middle of something,” he added when Aziraphale made a politely confused noise.“So.Sleep’s been delayed.”

“It’s only,” Aziraphale said, and then hesitated again.“I have _ever_ so many baked goods here.And, well, I’ve been thinking.About the rules.”

“Hm,” Crowley hummed.Second cupboard opened— only sporks.

“I did a bit more research on the _interconnected network_ , about the restrictions we’re under,” Aziraphale said slowly, and Crowley paused.He _knew_ that tone of voice— it was the one Aziraphale always broke out just before carefully talking his way around some loophole or moral grey area.He’d heard it plenty, in the decade it had taken him to finally convince Aziraphale to start an Arrangement with him, and more again when the Apocalypse had been nigh.

“I do believe,” Aziraphale said, “That as long as neither of us go outside, we would still be within the bounds of what we’re allowed to do.And since neither of us are in danger of… _contracting_ anything, so long as we don’t come into contact with anyone or set any _bad examples,_ we _specifically_ would be in the clear.”

“Huh,” Crowley said thoughtfully.He opened the third cupboard, stared in disgust at the single ladle it contained, and then miracled himself a cake pan.“What, exactly, are you suggesting, angel?Because if I remembered the _rules,_ people aren’t supposed to go see their friends.”

Aziraphale sounded sincerely insulted when he said, “Crowley, after all this time, I should _hope_ we’re a bit more than friends.”

Crowley froze.Rested his cake-batter-y hands on the counter and let his chin drop.Exhaled slowly.“Aziraphale,” he said in a low voice.“For _fuck’s_ sake.”

“Well, am I wrong?” Aziraphale said fussily, but Crowley was nearly certain it was to hide his nerves.

“Fine, when do you want me to come over?” Crowley asked, straightening again to scrape his cake batter into the pan and slide it into the oven.“I’ve got a few things to finish up here.”He scowled down at his chocolate-y hands, and the suspiciously chocolate-smelling tips of his hair.He ought to shower, make himself presentable before he did something like jump through the phone lines to the bookshop.He assumed that was what Aziraphale was hinting about, anyway, with all of his talk about meeting without stepping outside.After all, it was unlikely the angel had figured out how to make his fossil of a computer run Zoom.

“That’s quite alright, I would hate to inconvenience you,” Aziraphale said sincerely.“I’ll just come to you!You promised a case of something drinkable, after all, and I would hate to make you lug it all here.”

The phone crackled worryingly, and Crowley had just the presence of mind to take a large step back before pixels poured out of the screen and reconstituted themselves into a slightly ruffled angel of the Lord holding a plate covered in aluminum foil.

“Ah, lovely, it worked,” Aziraphale said with a smile.

Crowley squawked, “You can do that?!”

Behind him, their phone call ended and the YouTube video restarted, the baker saying cheerfully, “Now, let’s get started on this super easy frosting!”

Aziraphale carefully set his plate down on the cake-smeared counter and straightened his bowtie before he said, “Well, I paid attention last time you described traveling through the telephone lines, and it didn’t seem so different from what I did when I was discorporated last summer, so—“He paused, taking a proper look at Crowley for the first time.“Goodness gracious, what’s happened to you?”

“Thanks, angel, my ego really needed that boost,” Crowley said flatly.

Aziraphale looked him over, at his flour-flecked black shirt and his egg-splattered skinny jeans and his cake-tipped hair, and then said, “You have an apron that says _demon in the streets, demon in the sheets?_ My word, Crowley, a bit on the nose.”

Crowley snorted.“That’s what you’re concerned about?”

Aziraphale squeezed past him, taking in what had formerly been a kitchen, and now looked like the inside of a particularly messy mixing bowl.“Avant garde, cooking using your entire kitchen,” he said mildly, and then waved a hand to miracle the ceiling clean.“You know, that modern fusion place near my shop might still be hiring after all of this—“

Crowley pressed his lips together.“If you’ve just come to make fun of me,” he started, and Aziraphale quickly shook his head.

“No!No, that’s not why I’m here.”He squinted.“Although, you _do_ need to turn the oven on if you want your cake to bake.”He turned the knob and the oven clicked on.Crowley discreetly wiggled his fingers, making it significantly hotter than the manufacturer had ever intended.A hotter oven meant that the cake would cook faster, right?

“There we are,” Aziraphale murmured, and then turned back to face him again, miracling himself a cake-free part of the counter to lean against.

Crowley slipped his apron off, folding it over his arm as he got rid of the cake ingredients splattered all over his clothes.“So why _are_ you here?” he asked bluntly.“Thought you were enjoying your quiet bookshop and solitude and sourdough.”He tried not to sound too peevish, but a little crept through anyway.

Aziraphale’s expression softened.“I was— am—“ he said.“Not having to fend off people who want to take my books has been surprisingly relaxing.Only, I _have_ missed you, my dear.”He took a deep breath, stepped a little bit closer.“Talking to you on the phone has been the highlight of my day each time it’s happened, and when you said you were probably going to sleep until July I realized— well, I ought to try a little harder to think of a way to see you.Before you went to bed.”

“We could have just FaceTimed,” Crowley said a little hoarsely, flustered.

Aziraphale looked politely confused.“Pardon?”

Crowley shook his head.“Never mind.”He bit his lip.“Did you mean it?” he said.

Aziraphale cocked his head.“That we’re more than friends?” he guessed (correctly, the bastard— and Crowley really lov—) and then smiled.“I did, my dear.”

Crowley swallowed hard as Aziraphale shuffled a little closer again, so close that Crowley didn’t even have to use his demon-senses to smell his cologne.“This is— this is a lot closer than two meters,” Crowley whispered breathlessly.

“My apologies,” Aziraphale said without moving away.He gazed up at Crowley through his eyelashes and then glanced away coquettishly for just a moment before looking back.“Since we’ve been in such close contact, I suppose we’ll just have to stay together.”

“No objections from me,” Crowley managed to say, and Aziraphale beamed, stepping back again.

“Delightful!”Behind him the oven dinged, and Aziraphale said with a smile, “Ah, your baking!”

“It’s— I’ll get rid of it, angel, it’s an awful mess,” Crowley said, a little embarrassed.

Aziraphale miracled himself oven mitts and said over his shoulder, “Nonsense!You put your _heart_ and _soul_ into this, Crowley—“

“Not a bloody life’s work,” Crowley muttered, rolling his eyes, even as he suppressed a smile.

Aziraphale set the steaming (or smoking?Gosh, Crowley knew he wasn’t exactly _Bakeoff_ material, but for Heaven’s _sake_ ) cake on the counter.“Shall we have a little snack?” he suggested with a smile.“I believe I was promised a drink.”

“Of course, angel,” Crowley said, and mustered the courage to brush a kiss to Aziraphale’s cheek before ducking into the pantry for a bottle or three of red.When he got back Aziraphale was glowing faintly, doing nothing to hide his enormous smile, and was in the process of cutting pieces from both of their cakes.

“Shall we?” he said, accepting a quickly-miracled glass full of wine and leaving a plate of cake for Crowley on the counter.“It’s been a few months since I’ve seen your plants.Or maybe we could watch a film on your television!”

Crowley grinned.“Sounds perfect.”He watched as Aziraphale bustled happily into the other room, his heart swelling with some very un-demonic emotion, and then picked up his wine and his cake before following.

Aziraphale and Crowley enjoyed the wine and the two cakes and the company for the rest of the evening, settled together on the couch— and if one of the cakes was both a little singed and still raw on the inside, and the other a bit stale from sitting on a bookshop shelf for a few days, it wasn’t anything a little miracle couldn’t fix.

**Author's Note:**

> Stay safe, yall
> 
> Thanks for reading, I really hope you enjoyed! I'm [here](https://asideofourown.tumblr.com/) if that's something you're into


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